Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Old Farmer's Ball keeps community dance alive

The Old Farmer's Ball is a Warren Wilson College weekly tradition that builds community through contra and traditional square dancing.

Buy Photo

Emily Abel is spun around and twirled by her partner Robert Townsend as they dance during the Old Farmer's Ball at Bryson Gym on the campus of Warren Wilson College on Thursday, April 21, 2016. (Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)Buy Photo

Every Thursday night, the doors of Bryson Gym open wide as sounds of fiddle and banjo drift across the Warren Wilson College campus. Inside, Phil Jamison taps his boot on stage to the old-time tune as he calls the first dance. "Circle in. Circle out. Circle to the left. Swing your partner, and do-si-do. Now, promenade two by two."

Following Jamison’s confident voice and moving to the infectious music, smiling couples circle hand in hand in square dances or pivot with new partners in long contra lines.

The Old Farmer’s Ball has been an institution in the Swannanoa Valley, first as a dance hall started in the 1930s, then resurrected in the 1980s. Each week, Bryson Gym is packed with up to 200 dancers — teens, elders and all ages in between — pairing off in dancesnative and relatively new to the mountains.

"There's not many places in our society where you can touch other people and hold their hands. It's part of the tradition of community dancing. By the end of the evening, you feel like you know these people," Jamison said.

A veteran caller, musician and accomplished flat-foot dancer, Jamison teaches math and traditional music at Warren Wilson. He’s also written the definitive book on mountain dance.

In “Hoedowns, Reels, Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance,” Jamison delves into the history of fancy footwork from clogging teams to the community dances featured each summer at Asheville’s Shindig on the Green and weekly at the Old Farmer’s Ball.

Meeting people on dance floor

Emily Gifford, 29, moved from New York to Asheville in December and quickly found the Old Farmer’s Ball to meet new friends. “The people are nice. I love the multigenerational atmosphere. You can be 12 or 90.”

A salsa dancer, Gifford finds the square dancing and contra styles more laid-back. “It’s not so competitive and you can make a mistake without anyone looking at you. (The caller) tells you what to do.”

Karl Hinterkopf, 40, of Weaverville, has been a regular at the Old Farmer’s Ball for the past 14 years. He needed to take some dance lessons for a wedding he was attending, and a friend suggested the contra dances at Warren Wilson. Hinterkopf came and was hooked.

“I’ve lost 80 pounds, and the dancing has helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin,” he said. “It’s helped me deal with a speech impediment since you meet so many different people each week.”

“This is such an institution,” Bob Daigle said, taking a break on the sideline with his friend, Junior Yelton.

Daigle lives about three miles away “as the crow flies,” but he’s been coming since he retired to the area 20 years ago. "At age 86, I would rather come here and dance than go to the gym," he grinned.

Yelton, 81, agreed. “It’s the best exercise I get each week.”

The roots of the dance run deep in the Swannanoa Valley.

Driving on Warren Wilson Road toward the college, you’ll pass an abandoned whitewashed building and a local landmark. Raymond Peak and his father-in-law George Watkins built the dance hall in the 1930s, inviting family and friends for friendly Saturday night dances.

Buy Photo

Phil Jamison calls a contra dance into the microphone during the Old Farmer's Ball at Bryson Gym on the campus of Warren Wilson College on Thursday, April 21, 2016. (Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

The evening started about 7 p.m. Peak was the caller, dancing on the floor with up to 100 couples, sometimes in two large rings. Peak called out old-fashioned patterns that date to the 1800s, including the “Georgia Rang-Tang” and “Bird in the Cage.”

Dancers would follow figures like “Shoo-Fly Swing” and “Promenade with London Bridge,” as couples bow and advance beneath the joined hands of the other dancers, according to Jamison’s research. There were fancy flashes of flat-foot dancing and clogging, along with the round dances, including waltzes, jitterbugs and even an occasional Virginia Reel.

The Farmer’s Ball had its fans for 20 years. By the 1950s and the advent of television, fewer people came out on Saturday nights. Rock ‘n’ roll music and modern styles of western square dancing replaced older traditions. The dance hall had taken on a rougher reputation with the alcohol in the parking lot.

Resurrecting the dance

Jamison remembers his first introduction to square dancing in physical education classes at school where girls and boys in gym shorts and skinny legs were paired up as awkward couples.

As a teenager, Jamison became interested in banjo and starting playing at community dances held at fire halls and VFW posts. He learned the art of calling dances, which has roots in the Southern Appalachians influenced by Native Americans and African-Americans.

“I’m kind of amazed,” Jamison said. “I’ve been calling now for 40 years.”

In 1982, Jamison joined a small group resurrecting the abandoned dance hall on Warren Wilson Road. They dubbed it the Old Farmer’s Ball in honor of its predecessor. The dance was held weekly until the Blizzard of 1993 and the collapse of the roof on the old building.

Buy Photo

Phil Jamison, center right, leaves calling the dance for a moment to grab Emily Abel by the hand and lead all of the dancers into a spiral on the dance floor during the Old Farmer's Ball at Bryson Gym on the campus of Warren Wilson College on Thursday, April 21, 2016. (Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

Dancers weren’t dissuaded, and the Old Farmer’s Ball do-si-do'd down the road into the historic Bryson Gym on the Warren Wilson campus.

With its origins as a Farm School, and its deep roots in the Swannanoa Valley, Warren Wilson is a good fit to keep alive Appalachian heritage, with its academic studies in traditional music. “Some students are die-hard dancers and chose to come to Warren Wilson just for the Contra dances,” Jamison said.

Dancers tend to favor Contra dances, the line formations that originated in New England folk traditions, but which became popular nationwide in the 1980s with more modern choreography.

It’s kind of like an invasive species that’s popular but can choke out the native varieties, Jamison said.

Jamison is a die-hard and still loves to mix in some Southern Circles and squares in his calls, even when some will sit out the set, crossing their arms. “I’ve been booed before, and threatened on Facebook when I’m booked to call the dance.

Calling squares offers more creativity for the caller versus the set choreography of the contra lines.

“It’s kind of like the difference between reading music off the sheet and improvisation,” Jamison said. “It’s always a big rush. You’re a conduit for connecting the people and the music. It’s fun to watch from the stage, this critical mass of people.”

A math teacher as well as a musician, Jamison appreciates the geometry of the form. Square dances involve the caller’s intricate variations on creating new circles with circles

Midway through one Southern Circle set, Jamison leapt from the stage and broke into the ring of dancers, grabbing one girl’s hand.

As the banjos and fiddles played faster, he led the line of dancers into a continuing spiral toward the center of the gym and snaking out again, men and women, girls and boys, young and old holding one another’s hands until Jamison joined them once more in an unbroken circle.

"I always get a big rush, no matter how tired I am starting out," Jamison smiled.

Hannah Dineley, center, makes a bridge with her partner as other dancers make their way under their arms during the Old Farmer's Ball at Bryson Gym on the campus of Warren Wilson College on Thursday, April 21, 2016. (Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)